There has been previously known a transfusion apparatus useful for an automatic dripping apparatus, in which a transfusion bottle is provided with a transfusion tube which at its portion has a dropping cylinder and on its downstream side is provided with a pump section having a peristaltic action on the tube.
In the transfusion apparatus of such type, monitoring of a quantity of the transfusion is very important for controlling the transfusion of a liquid to a patient. 0n such a view point, there has been utilized a mechanism in which the number of droplets in the dropping cylinder is counted while a conversion rate of the transfusion volume (the number of droplets per ml) inherent to a transfusion unit is determined for calculating the number of droplets as the transfusion volume.
In general, the conversion rate in a commercially available transfusion unit has been determined to be sixty droplets per ml in the transfusion set for children while fifteen droplets per ml for the adults. The number of droplets per ml in the practical transfusion set, however, is not always kept constant. As a result, in most hospitals utilizing the transfusion set, the conversion rate must be confirmed each time the transfusing operation is performed for resetting the conversion rate if necessary, resulting in the poor operability. Unless the conversion rate is not confirmed thereby resulting in uncorrect transfusion (for example, in case of employing the transfusion set for the adults based on the conversion rate (sixty droplets per ml) for children), about 4 times higher amount of the transfusion than the intended amount is introduced into the children.
Accordingly, an object of the invention is to provide a transfusion apparatus in which a transfusion tube at its predetermined range is subjected to a peristaltic movement in a pump section for feeding a volume of a liquid, based on which volume the number of droplets in a dropping cylinder is counted for discriminating the transfusion set for the adults or children, and further in which the conversion rate for the number of droplets corresponding to the transfusion amount may be conveniently judged, if necessary.